Unlimited long distance $24.99/mo
Comcast has provided U.S. regulators details of how it plans to change the way it manages Web traffic over its high speed Internet network without blocking any applications or content.
The move comes after the Federal Communications Commission voted last month to uphold a complaint that Comcast had violated the regulator's open-Internet principles by hindering peer-to-peer traffic from applications such as BitTorrent.
Comcast said on Friday that under the plan designed to give all users their "fair share" of bandwidth it would focus on managing the traffic of customers who are using most bandwidth when the network is congested.
It said it will use software on its network to determine if particular subscribers have been the source of high volume of traffic and will temporarily give traffic from those subscribers a lower priority status.
It said that when a subscriber's traffic is assigned a lower priority status its traffic could be delayed if the network is congested but would not be delayed if there is no congestion.
Comcast said it expect to have the new traffic management system in place across its network by the end of December.
U.S. Internet service providers such as Comcast have been overwhelmed by the rapid growth of online services including peer-to-peer applications as well as online video, music downloading and photo-sharing, and are seeking ways to cost-effectively avoid network congestion.
Comcast, which has more than 14 million high-speed Internet subscribers, had previously said it was changing its network management practices to ensure all Web traffic is treated essentially the same.
So if you have unlimited cell phone plan and you make alot of calls, the cell phone company can put you on lower priority status during peak hours and you will have less chance of getting through?
Its the same exact anology yet the one outlines above sounds ridiculous. You pay for the service with Comcast, why are you being penaltiziled for actually using it? Comcast needs to stop punishing people who use the service and either reduce the bandwidth allocated to each user or upgrade their hardware to handle more traffic.
Consumers pay an average of $60 per month on cable TV.
Comcast wants to limit your monthly data to 250 gigabytes = 2 hours of HDTV per day
NBC is using P2P to deliver its shows directly to you
If you can get your content directly from the networks instead of Comcast, then oops - Comcast is out a LOT of money.
Network Neutrality is a matter of national economic security.
Instead of the Fed using 700 Billion to bail out the banks and the homeowners that couldn't afford those inflated houses in places like Sacramento in the first place, they should invest it in national fiber to the home subsidies and regulate Cable and Phone companies' Internet service offerings.
I NEVER turn on my TV on a day-to-day basis anymore. Maybe once a week to watch a movie that is not available for streaming viewing online, but not on a day-to-day basis. In fact, we are only keep cable TV so that we can get: weather reports and sports viewing.
What can they do? Increase bandwidth capacity or throttle higher bandwidth subscriber in an effort to better load balance the system. Increasing bandwidth is pretty much out of the question as many cable systems are at capacity. Where I live, Comcast moved 5 analog cable TV channels to their digital cable because they needed the bandwidth for more digital TV channels. It can stuff 10 digital channels in the bandwidth occupied by 1 analog channel. Moving 5 channels allows 45 additional digital channels.
Many cable companies are almost bursting at the seams. I'm half expecting them all in 2009 to eliminate analog cable TV in favor of forcing everyone to rent a cablebox and pay the higher fee for (basic) digital cable. They can use the DTV conversion and subscriber demands for more digital channels as a smoke screen to get more money from the subscribers.
I can easily imagine that Verizon FIOS is just waiting for some of the more desirable markets to max out to the point where the municipalities will come begging to them when their cable contracts are up for renewal - just so they can ride in and come to the rescue (and get tax breaks and other goodies).
I agree that Comcast has tried some stupid things but if we give a knee jerk reaction that Comcast is evil everytime they try to manage the network we never get progress. Why can't we all search for some middle ground?
If you're on a segment with a network hog I bet you'll really appreciate their efforts. The only other choice is for Comcast to be forced to build out more network and pass more costs onto us; a situation I know you'd all ***** about too.
Things like cutting off subscribers that go beyond some limit where you can't even track your limit is totally dumb and you all have every right to complain; but let's give some credit when they attempt to make a reasoned stab at the problem.
It does seem like the hogs are out of control. If I remember correctly, Comcast's limits were 250GB a month. That's a lot of traffic. If you are using that much (or even half as much) you are a hog (and probably stealing your ass off on the torrents) and deserve some slapping about.
PS I don't work for Comcast. I have their CableTV but have FIOS Internet because the cable was too slow and unreliable (maybe due to the hogs).
If they did, I would have the right to throw their ***** out of my home!
What they need to do to increase their band width is upgrade their system. I went to www.speedtest.net the other day to check my cable speed. They have a listing of what cable speeds are around the world. I looked up Tokyo and their broadband speeds are twice as fast as Comcast. Why can't Comcast run fiber as a back bone and divide their user base into subnets using existing cable? If they keep the subnets small enough there will be no "bandwidth hogs". If Comcast advertises a certain amount of bandwidth that is what they should deliver. Or they should refund some of your money. If an airline over books a flight and kicks someone off they give him something for their trouble why can't Comcast do the same? I mean if you tell them there are money hogs and you have a cash flow problem so they are going to be throttled back on how much you pay them I don't think they would hold still for that.
And the person that thinks Comcast's plan is a good idea has just been taking it for so long that he thinks the pain he is feeling is normal. Well it's not bud. You're taking it where it shouldn't be taken.
You have also hit the nail on the head that if Comcast would put in more access points for a certain number of homes, the 'bandwidth hogs' (which most of this is coming from TOO MANY PEOPLE BEING ON ONE ACCESS POINT!) wouldn't even pop up on their radar once.
Comcast estimated wrong, and is penalizing their customers over their inability to provide what they've promised.
Not that I care, mind you, I switched to AT&T.
-
by inachu
September 26, 2008 3:58 PM PDT
- As of Today COMCAST is still sending reset packets.
-
Reply to this comment
-
See all 24 Comments >>To bypass comcast reset packets you need to download NNAGENT.
COMCAST is killing my blizzard updates and at this download rate it will take me one month to finnish this patch!